 |
| Lucy Allan MP |
As discussed on a previous thread, Woman's Hour, to their credit, gave almost a quarter of an hour to the Telford paedophile scandal yesterday and Jane Garvey herself raised the issue of BBC squeamishness, even conceding the possibility that the BBC's critics might have a point.
I would note though that she herself stuck to using the "Asian" label, leaving it to her guest Lucy Allan MP to be more specific about the perpetrators' "Pakistani heritage" (with neither of them going anywhere near the 'Muslim' angle), and also that, being a feminist first-and-foremost, she initially tried to shift the conversation to make it about "men" in general:
Jane Garvey: Of course other people over the years, perhaps rightly in some cases, have accused people like the BBC being somewhat squeamish about being absolutely truthful about these sorts of events. From what I can gather, and you can correct me Lucy, the organisation of these hideous crimes was largely done by Asian men, However, not all victims were white women, white girls, and certainly some of the perpetrators, other perpetrators, were white men and Chinese men, indeed Men - that was the only thing that distinguished them from the rest of the population. Is that fair?
Lucy Allan: I think the police always, in any crime, must do a profile of the perpetrator and a profile of the victim. In Telford there is no doubt that it is a crime committed by older men against young girls from a particular type of background. In my experience they are young white working class girls with multiple vulnerabilities. That is a common denominator. Yes, some of the perpetrators have been from Asian communities.
Jane Garvey: Well, the organisation of the whole ring, the paedophile ring that was running in Telford, that was done by Asian men. There's no getting away from that?
Lucy Allan: Yes, here were seven Asian men running a organised network across Telford and they were all from Pakistani heritage.
